Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

opened to me, I was ushered into a small ante-room there to await my doom.

As the servant posted out of the waiting-room with my glazed credential, I felt somehow or other annoyed with myself for having relinquished it, and finally wished myself in the sharp air of the January morning again. However, it was gone, and wait the event I must; it soon came, too soon! The trim cap of the servant girl made its re-appearance before I had scarcely time to think thus much. Picture to yourself, if you can, the feeling with which the condemned felon follows the jailor up the ladder-with which the sailor ascends the fatal plank-with which the schoolboy anticipates the master's cane on the issue of an encounter—with which the inexperienced aspirant for equestrian honours proceeds to the blood charger-and you will have some slight notion of the tremor with which Horace Furbelle ascended the carpetted stairs. Arrived at the top of them, a door opened softly, and my foot took its own impression on the Axminster, and my eyes rested on those features which I had so long wished and yet dreaded to meet.

Out slided the servant, and we weree-alone! I knew I blushed, I felt I did, as I took nervously the hand frankly extended to me. Where had I been? Why had I gone so abruptly on the ball night, without so much as taking leave? Had I been ill? Had I been busy? And how were my sisters? Such were the first few questions, that the same nervous individual had to answer.

"My object in coming here this morning my dear Madam-" such was my prosy commencement. "My object in coming here was to make you in some way the confidant of a long cherished secret"- Such was my senti

mental proceeding.

"Indeed," with emphasis

[ocr errors]

"Yes-Miss Amelia-Madam—if you can spare a few moments-for I will not detain you longer-your questions shall be all answered, and my heart lightened of its burden”— Hang it, I was getting eloquent!

"Certainly, Mr. Furbelle, I will be all attention, but allow me to observe that this is a very mystical and Ratcliffite way of commencing a morning conversation-"

I was aware of the painful fact!

But I can go on no further-if the reader will be so kind as to exercise his imagination a little, he will fancy to himself the succeeding moments of mawkish sentiments and crimson confusion,-he will fancy the one, who penning this, with his knees, not his feet, buried in the aforesaid carpet, with his eyes fixed on the lady's face, and his heart beating the Drum Polka within his waistcoat,-he will fancy the lady changed entirely from her old levity, with the tears starting into her bright blue eyes, and her lips growing pale with sorrow, rising suddenly up from her chair and leaving the suppliant on his knees, awe-stricken, hopeless, giddy and frozen by the utterance of three simple words from her lips!

"I am married ! ! !"

With my head buried in my hands, I remained for a moment, looking up to speak, I found the chair and the room were empty. Automaton-like, I took up my hat, and strode into the street "a sadder and a wiser man.”

That evening, dreamily sitting over an old Theological Tome from my Uncle's shelves, a note was brought in to me: I caught at its purport quickly, with a spark of hope, but alas! it was only to enjoin secrecy on me,-it was to assure me again that she was married, privately on the morning of the ball, and that her husband was the Honorable William Augustus Buttercup!

Such were the fruits and such the consequences of the New Year and its ball.

*

And such, gentle reader, is a specimen of the tale-writing of the present day. Forgive me for furnishing thee with a general parody, I have but followed in the track of others— laid gigantic foundations whereon to build a dormitory for domesticated quadrupeds.

PATIENCE.-The Christian, convinced that "the Judge of all the earth will do right," patiently bears the evils of this life, in hope of a better; and sees even in the inadequate distribution of rewards and punishments here, a proof that there is a life hereafter —thus drawing consolation from those very evils which might otherwise sink him to the dust.-Rно.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

HOMES of the great and noble! When the world,
Bending before a sacerdotal throne,

Worshipped the Priest-King's image,-on your heights
Trod men of higher mould, who dared assert
Their claim to freedom. As above the clouds
Their Balsille's peaks, high towering up to heaven,
Looked down upon the hills and vales beneath,
So stood your sons, high towering o'er their kind,—
Scorning the slave-mark which the nations wore
Who peopled Europe then, and at the beck

Of Rome's proud Pontiff stooped to lick the dust
Like crouching things of nought. THEY have bequeathed
A faith, kept pure from Rome's corrupting stains,

To England and the world-a faith maintained
Amidst exterminating wars, and fires,

And tortures hell-invented. Oft to heaven
Their prayers have risen, amidst the savage roar

Of loud artillery, or the dashing tramp

Of fierce invading hosts; and oft their bands,

Strong in the might of freedom and of God,

Have driven the invader from their snow-clad heights,

Baffled, disgraced, repulsed. From sire to son

The fire descended, and from year to year,

From century to century it burned,

Unquenched, undimmed. And heaven has heard their prayers,

Heard them, and answered. France, alas! may lose

The freedom she has fought for : Rome be bound

With manacles re-forged by Gallic hands:

But on the Vaudois heights, where never foot
Of slave found rest, a day of hope has dawned!
And cold indeed must be the English heart
That joys not in your children's joy to hear
Sardinia's king on them confer the boon
Their valiant sires so nobly battled for
Midst centuries of obloquy and wrong—
“Freedom to worship God!"

You Meaner Beauties.

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfie our eies

More by your number, than your light;

You common people of the skies,
What are you when the moon shall rise?

Ye violets that first appeare,

By your pure purple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the yeare,
As if the spring were all your own;
What are you when the rose is blown?

Ye curious chaunters of the wood,

That warble forth dame Nature's layes,
Thinking your passions understood

By your weak accents: what's your praise,
Whon Philomell her voyce shall raise?

So when my mistris shal be seene

In sweetnesse of her looks and minde;
By virtue first, then choyce a queen;
Tell me, if she was not design'd
Th' eclypse and glory of her kind?

FROM THE RELIQUIE WOTTONIANÆ, 1651.

Sceptisism contrary to Reason.

BY JULIUS PARTRIGE.

CONTINUED.

Ir is material to the argument to enquire, what are the respective provinces of instinct and reason in our own nature? Instincts are natural tendencies or impulses in our original constitution. Apart from the question of the origin of moral evil, all our original inherent powers and inclinations are the gift of our Creator. It will not be denied that they are expressions of His will and intention, as to the functions we are to fulfil, and the spheres in which we are to move. But in this argument, I find I am assuming the existence of a Creator,-and perhaps I ought, in a lecture such as this, rather to prove than to assume the fact. Let us glance then for a moment at the palpable and infinite absurdities of its denial, as the most rapid method of establishing its truth. Those who deny a Creator, can conceive of a God-deserted Universe, a material, soulless world, purposing and guiding its own life, or being guided by chance or accident, or some such other nothing. Whilst they admit no small effects without perfectly adequate and scrupulously proper causes, they allow the vastest effects in the phenomena of the Universe to recur unexplained; nay, more, they affirm them to be causeless-accidental. We ask, what is it that revolves so regularly all the beauteous machinery of life around us? It is Chance! What is it that makes the Sun, and Moon, and Stars to shine in their appointed seasons? It is Chance! What is it that calls Spring and Summer, and Autumn, and Winter, in their times, and bids them go again? This too is Chance! What is it that classifies with unerring certainty, and under the most fixed laws, all the innumerable families of nature, vegetable and animal, and bids each reproduce itself? This also is Chance! And what is chance? Uncertainty, accident, eccentricity! O! Uncertainty, accident, eccentricity! Great Trinity of Deities! You, then, are the makers of all the fixed and certain laws of all nature and all science! You are the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »